German Parliament OKs Bold HVDC Grid Upgrade

Germany's bold transmission plan is a go. The Bundesrat, Germany's senate, has accepted the plan's enabling legislation forwarded to it by the Bundestag (Germany's parliament), according to the authoritative German Energy Blog. There is every reason to expect that the plan's core element—four high-voltage direct current or HVDC transmission lines profiled by Spectrum last month —will get built.

That is good news for Germany's grid and those of its neighbors. All are straining to manage powerful and variable flows from the wind turbines and solar panels that provided 12 percent of Germany's power generation last year. And plenty more is planned. Projections by the Berlin-based energy think tank Agora Energiewende suggest that the generating capacity of Germany's renewable installations could grow to 130 GW by 2022 from the roughly 75 GW in place at the end of 2012.

Elements of both the HVDC system design and the legislation should ease construction of the HVDC systems. On the design side, Germany's transmission system operators have specified advanced converters whose ability to arrest and clear DC line faults will reduce the risk of running overhead lines. This means the HVDC lines can use existing rights-of-way used by AC lines. In fact, they can be hung from the same towers. (Read the May 2013 story for extensive discussion of the advanced modular multilevel converters.)

The enabling legislation, meanwhile, will simplify line permitting by making a federal court in Leipzig the only forum for legal disputes concerning the projects. Separate legislation passed by the Bundesrat and Bundestag makes Germany’s federal networks regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur or BNetzA, the sole permitting authority for power lines that cross Germany's state or national borders. These measures—for better or worse—cut out state-level officials that face greater pressure from local project opponents and may be more sympathetic to their concerns.

Add it all up and Germany is en route to become the first country with HVDC lines playing a critical role at the core of their power grid. It is arguably the first real challenge to AC's century-plus reign as the top dog in power transmission since DC-advocate Thomas Edison lost the War of Currents. Tesla and Westinghouse may just be rolling over.

Image: The substation near Germany's Neckarwestheim nuclear power station that is slated to host the southern converter station for one of four planned north-south HVDC lines. Credit: Peter Fairley